


i'm a young man, after all

by grumpysimon



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 08:31:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1259776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpysimon/pseuds/grumpysimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every last breath is another way to love you. She's dying. He's dying with her. Never forget. Never forget. <br/>            "Please tell me you know my name." <br/>   She doesn't; and it is all slipping away. They've known each other forever, and they've been friends, and then lovers, and forever they've been catching each other before they hit the ground.<br/>  Together they jump. <br/>   Goodbye, my love, my endless memory, River Song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. static, for only a moment

**Author's Note:**

> So here is another AU because of my endless procrastination on updating The Art of Wasting Our Time. Oh well. I hope you enjoy it! It works in a back-to-front sort of way, so if it is confusing you should leave me a comment or something~  
> <3 Kenzie  
> Italics are the present, non-italic is background, by the way.

_"I love you, in the backwards sort of way." That was one of the things that she had said, in those very last days, in the very last moments._

 

    A comment like that prompted a story, didn't it? That short sentence said that there was a tale behind it, something the entire family would gather to hear. The story proceeding would be the story of a girl named River Song, and how she forgot. She forgot, and he remembered. The he in question being a boy with the given name of John Smith. It was a long story, the enthralling type. John Smith and his whisper girl, as she lingered about.

 

      Their childhood was an endless summer, or at least that was what most remembered. Laughs, and lemonade, mostly. Boiling hot days in the Pond's swimming pool. River Song's name was Melodie, but the nickname of River Song had caught on at a young age, and most everyone went along anwith it. John was the bookish type for quite a long time, continuing into high school. River always teased him about it.

 

        They were close friends, through all the boyfriends and girlfriends the two had been through. They'd talked about dating, the two of them, but it just didn't seem to fit, at the time. It never spoiled their friendship, however. Everyone was heavily convinced that they were dating, though, considering the amount of piggybacks that John gave River. They were in love, you could probably say. But not in that way. It was easy to admit that their relationship was unconventional, but they didn't mind.

 

    They'd been friends since they were both children, and they stayed close up until high school, which was an unlikely thing to say for a opposite-sex relationship. River Song was trouble to the rest of the boys and girls in the school, considering she could and she would break your nose if you looked at her the wrong way, and she knew how to shoot most all guns and took archery classes, and always hit the target.

 

    "Her curves are absolutely fantastic, though." Someone would say in a comment on River Song. They'd most likely refer to her as Melodie, though, and that would piss her off even more." Nose broken, and River with yet another suspension. John would have to vouch for her again, and then he'd ramble on about how violence wasn't a good, and how River Song was making improper life decisions, blah blah blah. She'd drown his words away, and just listen to his voice. John would do the same, though, anytime she went on a rant about some new boy at school or something.

 

    John could probably quote entire books, and go on for hours about some bit of history that seemed tedious to just your usual guy, but to him it was simply captivating to him. He was also learning how to play the guitar, but he really wasn't all that good. He pretended to be, singing in a surprisingly husky voice while River was giggling uncontrollably in the background.

 

    "It's not funny!" He would always exclaim, which only made River laugh harder. They would end up laughing together, hysterical for no particular reason. They went off to college together, at NYU, where John did all sorts of things involving history and River studied archaeology and artistic sorts of things. They seemed to have hearts beating in a constant motion, sometimes dating, sometimes not. For some reason, it was one of those friendships that couldn't be broken, no matter how much they fought and how quirky their relationship was.

 

    Then River Song caught a cold. It was just a day or so of missed classes, and then they went to the doctor. They prescribed some antibiotics, and it was dismissed from thought. But a fire was coming, it truly was. The pneumonia was next, and River ended up in the hospital. She studied in the hospital, and she still listened to her music and kept up presentable grades. She was in the hospital for a week or so, and just as the doctors were ready to send her home, she took a shower, and then blacked out. It was required she stay longer, for treatment. John visited her every day, sometimes bringing his guitar and trying trying to play her one of her favorite songs, but he still wasn't all too good. She laughed less, though, and more she just listened. She just liked to hear his voice.

 

    After a few weeks in that dull hospital room, the doctors realized they honest-to-god could not identify what was wrong with the curly haired girl on floor two with a man with a guitar by her side. Hopes of going home for a while were diminished, and River was officially _sick_ , a word passed between Amy and Rory and John, the three people that cared for River the most. _How much did they worry, oh how much._


	2. Chapter 2

_She hardly smiled that day. Her eyes were pointed to the ceiling. River Song had been in the hospital for four months. John had dropped out of college, working at the Starbucks on the corner by the hospital so he could be closer to River. The hospital bills were killing Amy and Rory, back at home. The city of New York didn't seem all that beautiful anymore. John had played the guitar, for a while, and River had closed her eyes and listened to "Asleep" by the Smiths. The doctors had been working frantically to find out what was wrong with her for four whole months._

_Amy and Rory called every night, asking questions. "No they haven't found anything yet, they still don't know." It was always the same thing. No updates, nothing. River wasn't talking very much, hardly at all._

_"I had a dream I was running last night."  River said one day. It was warm outside, and the curtains were open to let some of the sunshine in. She was sitting up, but doing much for her was hard. There was something wrong with her lungs, and she couldn't run. Walking was hard for her. "I was running through a field, and you were there. You looked quite handsome without that bow-tie of yours." She said. He'd lightly punched her arm, and she'd punched him back. She could still be playful, sometimes, but it was just her attempt to keep John from being so very uptight, so worried. She was trying to show that she was okay, that she was going to make it._

_Even without makeup, John thought that she was beautiful. Her hair was a mess, explosive around her face, and she would've been simply stunning if she could just put a smile on her face. John could understand that she was scared. She was left in the dark. Bad case of pneumonia? No, they'd already tried drugs for that, and they weren't seeming to work. All they did was make her tired._

_Sometimes they put her on medication to ease the pain in her lungs, and that was when she smiled. But it wasn't the real smile of River Song. Nor were the words she said, words of  adventures in her head and her love for John. He brushed it off. They always were kind of aware of the love that the both of them had for each other, but the idea of them getting together just seemed- odd. She held his hand and rambled, sometimes just strings of words that didn't make all that much sense._

John IM'ed River every day in class, for a long while. He started missing notes and failing tests, and eventually he just gave up. His best friend, the most important person in the entire universe, was sick. After the Day of the Blackout, and they started calling it, John was there until closing hours. Their apartment was empty without her loud phone calls all the time, and their constant bickering like an old married couple. He found his job at the Starbucks on the corner, making cappuccinos for hoity toity women with stick-like bodies and purse dogs. They sickened him.

   He thought about River, a lot. One Wednesday, his mind was wandering about the song he would play her today, and he spilled coffee all over a customer. She shrieked at him, and he almost laughed, honestly. Her shade of makeup made her look like she was accidentally trapped in a tanning salon. She scowled at the corner of his mouth turning up. "How dare you!" She yelled. The rest of the shop peeked up from their reading or conversations, watching it go down as if they were watching a movie.

   "Miss, I am so, so sorry." He said, politely. "A free coffee and scone, on the house." He handed her the key to the bathroom in the back, and she stalked away. A well dressed man in the back laughed. "You handled that well!" He was wearing suspenders and a sort of kill 'em smile on his face that you might see on River. John kicked himself. He was trying as hard as he could not to let his life revolve completely around that girl named River Song in the hospital a few shops away. The man sauntered up to the counter. "John Smith," he said with a snort, "that is the most boring name I have ever heard of." He said. "Jack Harkness, pleased to meet you." He stuck out his hand, and John hesitated to join in on the conversation. But there were no customers, so he decided he might as well.

   "Hello, Jack." He said. "What brings you to this awful chain coffee shop today?" John asked, catching a little bit of a smirk from Jack. "Hangover with a side of breakup, I suppose." Jack replied. 

   "What brings you to working at this awful coffee chain?" Jack said, taking a sip of his coffee. John's breath hitched. He didn't like to think about River. It had only been a couple weeks since the Day of the Blackout, but River had been sick for a little over a month. "Not much. Just a filler to not being in college." John muttered. Jack gave him an odd look. 

   "Bit more than that, eh?" He said, with a said smile. "I wasn't entirely truthful with you, either. We pulled the plug on my boyfriend the day before yesterday." His eyes saddened. "Do you have one in there?" He motioned to the hospital. John nodded, biting his lip. 

    "Your lover?" Jack prompted. The look in John's eyes obviously screamed hurt. Jack faced his eyes to the ground, with an "I'm sorry, was that too much." John shook his head. "No, no, it's alright. Really. I just don't talk to other people all that much about it. Well, I actually don't talk to anyone about it except for her parents, and it just shocks me when anyone wants to know." John mumbled. 

   "Its alright. Would it be too nosy to ask what she has?" Jack questioned, the woman with a coffee stain down her overly decorated jeans stomping out of the shop behind him. The corner of John's lip curled up.

   "The doctors....They.. They don't know." John said, biting the edge of his nail. A customer walked up behind Jack. "Give me a moment, will you?" John asked. Jack moved to the side, glancing at John for a moment, thinking about how they hadn't known at first with Ianto either. John made the customer's order and handed it to her with a faked "have a great day!"

    The door jingled with the sign of another customer entering. Jack scrawled down his telephone number. "We should go out for coffee, swap stories, I think. You seem like you need someone else to support you. I'll let you get back to your job." John thanked him, and Jack raised his cup of coffee and left the door with another jingle of the bell. He spent the day making more orders, and realizing that he had now found an ally. Like sickness was some sort of war. 

   At the end of his shift, he picked up his guitar from the store room in the back, humming "Yellow" by Coldplay. He walked, staying under the shade of the trees, to the hospital. They'd moved River to the bed by the window, so she could stare out on the street and see bits of the city and the people below. 

\-----------------------

   River loved watching those walking, wondering what it would be like to be able to walk without panting again. She remembered it from all those years and time she'd spent running around with John, and she smiled at the thought. What a good childhood it had been, but River supposed that it was just the calm before the storm. Twenty years of calm before the storm! But during the time of the storm, she would go below deck and wait for it to pass, for the storms always end. You maybe soaked and have almost caught your death during that storm, but it will pass.

   John walked into her room with his guitar on his back. He had improved very much since high school, but he was still incredibly dorky. His face light up when he saw her, and she smiled as well. Some days were days that felt like climbing a mountain, but others were just days when River Song felt like she was climbing a small hill. They were still hard, but the finish line seemed closer on some days, and that made River feel good about the idea of the storm passing. 

  He played a song for her that day, like he did most days, and she smiled and laughed with him. This time, she didn't hit him or pull away when he took her hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism, constructive criticism, constructive criticism! Please, I really do need it. I would greatly appreciate some love, just a kudos or a short comment. I really do read and reply to all of them, and they keep me writing. I love you all, have a lovely day!


End file.
